| This qualitative study used semi-structured open-ended interviews to listen to the voices of 18 Mizrahi women who had been engaging, for more than 7 years, in street prostitution. Through a bottom-up content analysis the author searched for the various dimensions of agency, empowerment and resilient self-efficacy perception that emerged these women's life stories as street prostitutes. Research findings indicate that sex work was for theses women a strategy of resistance, and a way to become autonomous agent away from the authority and domination of Mizrahi men. With their body in sex work, they protested against their inferior status, and the defamation and sexual abuse perpetrated by Mizrahi males supposed to protect women's honor and virginity! In sex work Mizrahi women, like many disfranchised women in the rest of the world, felt empowered and developed resilient self efficacy as they managed to protect themselves from the dangers and diseases of the streets and were able to make a decent income to support themselves and other family members.
Journal International De Victimologie/ International Journal Of Victimology (JIV/IJV) ,T.7, N°3, 2009 |
